This dataset contains information on antibody testing for COVID-19: the number of people who received a test, the number of people with positive results, the percentage of people tested who tested positive, and the rate of testing per 100,000 people, stratified by ZIP Code Tabulation Area (ZCTA) neighborhood poverty group. These data can also be accessed here: https://github.com/nychealth/coronavirus-data/blob/master/totals/antibody-by-poverty.csv
Exposure to COVID-19 can be detected by measuring antibodies to the disease in a person’s blood, which can indicate that a person may have had an immune response to the virus. Antibodies are proteins produced by the body’s immune system that can be found in the blood. People can test positive for antibodies after they have been exposed, sometimes when they no longer test positive for the virus itself. It is important to note that the science around COVID-19 antibody tests is evolving rapidly and there is still much uncertainty about what individual antibody test results mean for a single person and what population-level antibody test results mean for understanding the epidemiology of COVID-19 at a population level.
These data only provide information on people tested. People receiving an antibody test do not reflect all people in New York City; therefore, these data may not reflect antibody prevalence among all New Yorkers. Increasing instances of screening programs further impact the generalizability of these data, as screening programs influence who and how many people are tested over time. Examples of screening programs in NYC include: employers screening their workers (e.g., hospitals), and long-term care facilities screening their residents.
In addition, there may be potential biases toward people receiving an antibody test who have a positive result because people who were previously ill are preferentially seeking testing, in addition to the testing of persons with higher exposure (e.g., health care workers, first responders.)
Neighborhood-level poverty groups were classified in a manner consistent with Health Department practices to describe and monitor disparities in health in NYC. Neighborhood poverty measures are defined as the percentage of people earning below the Federal Poverty Threshold (FPT) within a ZCTA. The standard cut-points for defining categories of neighborhood-level poverty in NYC are:
• Low: